This Week in Comics

THIS WEEK IN COMICS! (12/7/16 – Real Potential Energy)

I try not to fuck up too often with this column, but last week a book just totally slipped by me. It’s a new IDW release of work by the L’Association co-founder and all-around contemporary French comics icon Lewis Trondheim, collaborating with artist Nicolas Keramidas and colorist Brigitte Findakly (whose collaboration with Trondheim, her spouse, goes back to the Lapinot series in the 1990s) on an unusual Disney comic. The original French edition was released by Glénat earlier this year under the same English-language title as IDW’s translated edition: Mickey’s Craziest Adventures. The album is technically part of a line of artist-driven Mouse comics at Glénat, with additional contributions by Régis Loisel (who’s done work for Disney’s animated films) and “Tébo” (also the writer of Keramidas’ Alice au pays des singes series with Glénat) — along with a book by Bernard “Cosey” Cosendey that IDW also plans to release — but really it’s part of Trondheim’s continuing project of summoning works and traditions from comics’ past and making them his own.

However, I am at a disadvantage. For one, I’ve not read what I suspect is this book’s closest relation, the 2010 Spirou et Fantasio sub-series album Panique en Atlantique, which Trondheim wrote for artist Fabrice Parme with purportedly similar throwback flair. Moreover, I *have* read this very good review of the Mickey book by Jonathan Bogart, whom I fear has plumbed all the depth this piece has to offer. Of particular note, Bogart reads the book’s central conceit — that the comic we’re seeing was not really created by Trondheim & co., but found by them in a hidden stash of regional European Disney comics from the ’60s, serialized at only one page per issue by anonymous talents — as a means of re-framing Mickey Mouse and all his baggage as something suddenly native to the small-format serialization of Franco-Belgian children’s comics: a truly BD Disney at last.

There are instances of things like this happening in the real world: during the occupation of Belgium in WWII, American comic strips like Superman and Flash Gordon were taken over for varying periods of time by the nearby likes of Joseph “Jijé” Gillain and Edgar P. Jacobs. And, indeed, in ‘reprinting’ only selected chapters from his fantasy Mickey, Trondheim nods to his own history with the Dungeon series he co-created with Joann Sfar, which only manifested itself as a few selected albums from a prospective series of hundreds of books – an impossible-to-realize ambition, transparently facetious, and reflective of a very modern attitude to ‘mainstream’ BD: the reader is duly invited to imagine the work Trondheim and his cohorts cannot hope to complete. Keramidas, incidentally, drew the 2008 final installment of the Dungeon Monstres sub-series, and Mickey’s Craziest Adventures operates in much the same way as that far grander project.

The results, though, are not really so thought-provoking. English dialogue writer David Gerstein (working from a translation by Ivanka Hahnenberger) affords the thing an appropriate Disney-like flair, but pretty much all the emphasis is on how many stock cliffhanger situations Trondheim can throw Mickey and Donald into, with Keramidas drawing their frantic escapes and Findakly (I presume) adding meticulous digital aging and simulated water and tear damage. There’s multiple underground civilizations, jungle perils, dinosaurs, mermen, aliens, bugs, etc., though because every page ends in a little closing gag — and because even the ‘sequential’ installments adopt a notably modular narrative format — there isn’t actually a lot of room for the reader to apply their own speculation to the gaps; it’s a bit aloof, to the point where you start to wonder if the conceit isn’t also to relieve Trondheim the burden of coming up with a fixed plot or a regulated pace, instead allowing him to do rising, rising, rising, rising action until the book collapses exhausted after 44 pages.

Nonetheless, it is also undeniably enjoyable as a lark, in which a number of very experienced and skilled people are observed fucking around handsomely for a brief while. Shame I missed it!

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PLEASE NOTE: What follows is not a series of capsule reviews but an annotated selection of items listed by Diamond Comic Distributors for release to comic book retailers in North America on the particular Wednesday identified in the column title above. Be aware that some of these comics may be published by Fantagraphics Books, the entity which also administers the posting of this column, and that I also run a podcast with an employee of Nobrow Press. Not every listed item will necessarily arrive at every comic book retailer, in that some items may be delayed and ordered quantities will vary. I have in all likelihood not read any of the comics listed below, in that they are not yet released as of the writing of this column, nor will I necessarily read or purchase every item identified; THIS WEEK IN COMICS! reflects only what I find to be potentially interesting. You could always just buy nothing.

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SPOTLIGHT PICKS!

Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White: You know what? Despite the vigorouscoveragealready afforded by this site, I am still gonna put this pretty kitty right up top, because everything I have seen (very partial) and heard (wholly anecdotal) suggests that this is legitimately a major work in terms of examining one of the paramount talents of early American comics, whose century-old magnum opus still feels it’s yet to surrender its mysteries. Michael Tisserand is the author, George Herriman is the subject, and for 560 pages you will dive deep into the man’s heritage, life and work. CONSIDER: a book without pictures. HarperCollins publishes in hardcover; $35.00.

By the Numbers: Eager to avoid another 1990s French alt-comics-related mishap, I will here spotlight another release from a L’Association co-founder – Stanislas Barthélémy, who draws this high-toned white adventurism project. Created with journalist Laurent Rullier, the “Victor Levallois” series released irregularly with Alpen Publishers and Les Humanoïdes Associés from 1990 to 2004, forming something of a ‘mainstream’ parallel track for the artist, albeit one fascinated by ligne claire classicism. The first two books even saw English translation in ’04, though nothing followed. Now Humanoids collects the entire series in a single 208-page, 7.6″ x 10.2″ softcover – basically, the project matches up throwback Tintin magazine aesthetics with the seriousness of international political conflicts in the mid-20th century, as an unworldly accountant finds himself caught up in big, dirty money, and not exactly immune to its pleasures; $24.95.

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PLUS!

Shadoweyes Vol. 1: Being a Kickstarter-funded 384-page(!) Iron Circus print edition for a superhero webcomic by Sophie Campbell, popular creator of the Wet Moon series and artist on various prominent superhero/licensed projects like Glory and Jem and the Holograms. It’s a shape-shifting concept, with a vigilante teen stuck inside an alien body. Colors by Erin Watson, with some art and dialogue refinements from the online iteration; $30.00.

Our Mother: Your Retrofit/Big Planet release of short(-ish) format work from a young talent arrives this week via Luke Howard, a Center for Cartoon Studies grad whose graphic novel Talk Dirty to Me was just released by AdHouse earlier this year. “[A] comedy about growing up with a parent who has an anxiety disorder,” this 40-page color work looks to toss various fantastic genres around to arrive at some autobiographical insight; $9.00.

Motor Crush #1 (&) Arclight #3: Two prominent arrivals from Image, generally a friendly venue for creators coming off high-profile mainstream superhero work. That’s the potential for Motor Crush, a SF motorcycle combat serial from the same core group that revived DC’s Batgirl to much attention a while back: Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher and Babs Tarr. Arclight is a whispery, glammed-out high fantasy series from writer Brandon Graham and artist Marian Churchland that released two issues in the middle of 2015 and subsequently vanished – now it is back, and know that an upcoming fourth issue is scheduled to close out the storyline; $3.99 (each).

Providence #11 (of 12) (&) Über: Invasion #1: A double-dose of ‘prestige’ titles from Avatar Press (not in terms of format, but “as opposed to Jungle Fantasy: Ivory“). Providence is the big H.P. Lovecraft series from Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows, which definitely seemed to reach a climax last issue, stoking speculation that the two concluding numbers will involve a timeskip or a big shift in location or something. At the very least there’s a rumor that the text-based backmatter is done, meaning 40 pages of cover-to-cover comics, though I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. Über: Invasion is the Kickstarter-bolstered continuation of a well-regarded (and notably unfinished) alternate history WWII supersoldier series from writer Kieron Gillen, which adopts the format of a docudrama that’s also a gore-laden Avatar comic. Daniel Gete is now what I presume to be the series’ primary artist, rather than originating artist Caanan White; $4.99 (Providence), $3.99 (Über).

The Complete Frank Miller Robocop Omnibus: But if it’s *vintage* Avatar you’re after, you can’t do better than the notoriously breakneck 2003-06 Steven Grant/Juan José Ryp adaptation of Frank Miller’s original script for Robocop 2, a 200+ page avalanche of blood-drenched chromium excess hammering ceaselessly amid roiling gold flames from one set piece to another, Hard Boiled (a better comic, mind) the most relevant waypoint in the Miller catalog. Amusingly, BOOM! is now the publisher, here pairing the series with a 2013-14 adaptation of Miller’s Robocop 3 script from Grant and artist Korkut Öztekin, the whole softcover package weighing in at 400 pages; $39.99.

Barbarella (&) Weapons of the Metabaron: More Eurocomics possibilities from Humanoids. Barbarella has been out a few times now, but it’s generally nice to see this trend-setting work from Jean-Claude Forest; the present 7.9″ x 10.8″ hardcover collects the 1964 original album and its 1974 follow-up, as localized by Kelly Sue DeConnick. Weapons of the Metabarons is an abbreviated 2008 showcase for the artist Travis Charest, who completed only a certain number of pages over a wide span of years before the project was finished by Zoran Janjetov, a frequent collaborator of writer and space mercenary concept co-creator Alejandro Jodorowsky, dutifully scripting around the visual shifts; $24.95 (Barbarella), $19.95 (Metabarons).

Ditko Unleashed! (&) Jack Kirby: Pencils and Inks: IDW’s got country and western this week with two titans of superheroes and greater American action comics. Ditko Unleashed! is a 9.6″ x 12.7″, 368-page catalog for an exhibition curated by Florentino Flórez & Frédéric Manzano, still running in Palma de Mallorca. Lots of printed pages and scans of original art spanning the breadth of his career are promised. Jack Kirby: Pencils and Inks is an 8″ x 12″, 160-page variation on IDW’s Artisan Editions (which themselves are variations on the publisher’s well-known Artist’s Editions), “showcasing” three comic books — The Demon #1 (1972), Kamandi #1 (1972) and OMAC #1 (1974) — in both of the form of photocopies from Kirby’s pencils, as well as with Mike Royer’s finished inks. Other selected pages will be included; $59.99 (Ditko), $49.99 (Kirby).

R. Crumb Sketchbook Vol. 1: June 1964 – Sept. 1968: Taschen has previously released Crumb’s sketchbooks in a pair of thousand–dollar boxed sets, but — no doubt aware of the precarious global economic situation and the sacrifices we the public make every day — the publisher now assents to 8.1″ x 10.6″ individual hardcover releases. I presume Crumb requires no introduction? Enjoy 440 pages of drawings reproduced straight from the original art, covering a period of early output through the release of the first few issues of Zap – evolutionary prime time, in other words; $39.99.

The 1964 New York Comicon: The True Story Behind the World’s First Comic Convention: Finally, though I know absolutely nothing about author J. Ballmann and publisher Totalmojo Productions, I do think a close examination of a single comics convention — from the exhibitors to the guests to the attendees — is a pretty terrific idea for a book, and there are few more attractive cons to choose from than this: Steve Ditko made a never-to-be-repeated public appearance, a teenage George R.R. Martin was among the crowd, and questions were raised as to the direction of this nascent form of social gathering. There is allegedly a huge stack of period materials reproduced in here, from the entirety of the official con booklet to dealer price lists, along with contemporaneous interviews with various guests and “over 300 photographs.” I dunno! I’d flip through it, sure; $29.95.

8 Responses to THIS WEEK IN COMICS! (12/7/16 – Real Potential Energy)

That second Mickey & Donald sequence is very reminiscent of the great 1957 Warner brothers cartoon Ali Baba Bunny, which has Bugs and Daffy behaving in a very similar way. The WB cartoon, by the way, has Daffy doing an Uncle Scrooge porpoise dive through a huge pile of gold coins: http://www.toon.is/looney-tunes-ali-baba-bunny-video_31e2989cb.html.

Avatar Press has been fascinating in their moving away from the Bad-Girl comics to stuff like, “Uber,” “Providence,” and etc. whilst in the meantime having their sub-company/imprint Boundless bring the Bad-Girl work back in a BIG and very raunchy way. The odd thing is both kinds of books are enjoyable on their own terms–e.g. the Avatar books as clever stories with lots of gore and/or weirdness and the Boundless books as extremely T&A-laden work with tongue firmly-in-cheek.

Ah, so it seems Image has shelved the 8House imprint nonsense and will release the stories as series on their own? Man, what a clusterfuck that was. Have any of those series concluded yet? I feel for Graham, but he definitely bit off more than he could chew with 8House and Island.

@Joe Yes, if I recall correctly, Mirror was slated for 8House but was rerouted due to poor sales of the brand. I hope to read it soon. My original comment came off a bit more flippant than it should have. I am a big fan of Graham’s work and honestly wish he’d do more of his creator-owned stuff than occupy his time with 8House and Island. King City sits high upon my shelf and I think Multiple Warheads has a lot of potential.